Stop the Rumour… Former Fidelity Bank MD Nnamdi Okonkwo Not Contesting Governorship

Where do bank MDs go when they retire? A loaded question, to be sure, but one that far-seeing folks have asked time and time again. First Bank’s Bisi Onasanya reportedly consented to dally in Real Estate; Polaris Bank’s Tokunbo Abiru took to politics like a fish in water; Fidelity Bank’s Nnamdi Okonkwo did what? And that’s one of the most popular questions thrown at the all-answering search engine, Google.

Nnamdi Okonkwo served as a super CEO/MD at Fidelity Bank from 2014 to 2016. During his time, the well-liked man engineered smart innovations, the likes that saw Fidelity Bank rising to the top of Nigerian banks and Okonkwo himself becoming a celebrity who collected awards every quarter of the year the same way art connoisseurs collect paintings and sculptures.
When Okonkwo retired in 2020, it was as a champion of banking and industry, and it was assumed that he would immediately put down his roots and found an insurance company, travel agency, or something along the elite business continuum. There has been no such thing—and it has been more than half a year.
It may be as a result of this perceived non-activity that rumour markets began to feature Okonkwo as a soon-to-be-out-of-the-closet politician. And since Anambra enjoyed the favourable financing of many projects from Fidelity Bank in Okonkwo’s time, why not cast him in a gubernatorial role? And this they did.
At present, the seed of hearsay that was sown a while ago has begun to bear fruit. Folks have started to pass around the supposition that NnamdiOkonkwo is interested in taking up the mantle of Willie Obiano, the incumbent Governor of Anambra State. This is not true.
So far, Okonkwo has neither publicly worn the colours of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), as folks claim, nor declared an interest in the governorship of Anambra (Perhaps he has some interest in the governorship of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), but even that is wishful thinking on the rumour monger’s part).

To review: point one, NnamdiOkonkwo is not contesting for Governor; point two, he has never contested for Governor; point three, he might never!